


lilac, star, bird

by kokiri



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Death, F/M, For a Friend, Ghosts, M/M, Supernatural Elements, flowers everywhere as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4096840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kokiri/pseuds/kokiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,<br/>Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,<br/>And thought of him I love."</p><p>a girl and a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lilac, star, bird

_O powerful western fallen star!_  
_O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!_  
_O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star!_  
_O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!_  
_O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul._

Yerim wakes up one morning to find that her hair is braided. Although she has known herself to sleepwalk occasionally, usually stumbling to the kitchen and pulling food out of the cabinets and onto the floor, or sometimes crawling into her mother’s bed during a particularly bad dream, she is positive she has never once braided her hair in her sleep.

Because Yerim does not know how to braid hair. Not her own, not anyone else’s.

The braid is not tied at the end with a tie. She undoes it and admires the soft curl it has left in her hair. How strange.

She doesn’t even have to look at the time on her phone to know that she has overslept. She can hear Jimin’s parents screaming on the other side of the wall, which is usually how they see him off to school. It’s a desperate plea from Jimin for them to please, please leave him alone that really makes Yerim feel frustrated.

 _I wish_ , she thinks, _that something would hurt them as much as they hurt him._

She hears a pained scream from Jimin’s father and the sound of glass breaking. Jimin knocks on the wall three times to tell her that he’s ready to meet her out in the hall. She feels better now. 

Her hair looks pretty today. She ties a ribbon around her ponytail and slowly, sleepily pulls on her school uniform. It’s Friday, she reminds herself, and tonight she is going to see a movie with Jimin. She’s been saving up her allowance so she can afford a ticket for him, too, since she knows his parents don’t have a lot of money and he wouldn’t be able to go otherwise.

“Yerim,” her mother says as Yerim taps the toes of her shoes on the ground so that they fit around her feet just right. “You need to stop making so much noise in your room like you did last night. I couldn’t sleep at all because of you. Why were you up so late?”

“Huh?” Yerim asks, but she doesn’t have time to care. “I wasn’t making any noise last night. I have to go. Bye, Mama!” And she’s out the door before her mother can even respond. Jimin is waiting for her, as he always is.

“Sorry if we were noisy. My dad spilled hot coffee all over himself and then broke his mug. My mom cut her finger on it,” he says, the smallest smile dancing on his lips. Yerim can tell he is trying not to look too happy about this, but she wants to tell him that it is fine to smile. It is her belief that it is fine to be happy when the people who hurt you are hurt themselves.

Yerim is disappointed by how humid it is outside. There is no way her perfectly pulled ponytail is going to last even the fifteen minutes it takes to walk to school. She holds a few strands of her hair in her hand and admires the gentle waves. Then she remembers how those waves got there in the first place.

“Jimin, the weirdest thing happened,” Yerim says. She tightens the ribbon in her hair and then reaches her arm out so that she can brush her fingers over the dew-covered flowers in the garden that stretches alongside the front of their apartment building. “I woke up and my hair was in a braid.”

“Did you braid it in your sleep?” Jimin asks. “You’re always doing weird things in your sleep. Sometimes I can hear you crying really late at night. Or throwing things on the floor. At least I think that’s what you’re doing.”

“I do _not_ cry in my sleep!” Yerim says. “And the thing is, I don’t know how to braid, so I don’t know how I could have done it in my sleep.”

Jimin leans down and plucks a lilac from the garden. He tucks it in Yerim’s hair, right behind her ear. “Something weird happened to me last night, too,” he says. “You know how I always kick one sock off when I’m asleep?”

Yerim lightly, gently touches the flower in her hair. She nods.

“This morning I woke up and they were both off! And…” Jimin pauses for emphasis and dramatic effect. “They were folded neatly on my chest of drawers!”

Yerim gasps dramatically. “Spooky,” she whispers. She pulls her phone out of the pocket of her blazer and checks the time. The first bell is going to ring in exactly six minutes. “Jimin, we’re going to be late!” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him along behind her.

They share more stories of the oddities that have occurred around their rooms lately, some exaggerated a little just for fun, and laugh loudly together until they reach the schoolyard. The lilac falls out of Yerim’s hair somewhere along the way, but they don’t have enough time to turn back and find it.

Yerim wishes to herself in passing that she still had that lilac. On the way home from school, she finds it just outside the school gate, all pristine and perfect like it isn’t even real.

 

 

Yerim is trying to do her homework when the lights in her bedroom start flickering. Luckily for her, she made up a new code so that she could inform Jimin of weird happenings at any time. Knock, knock, pause, knock, knock, knock. Jimin knocks back their standard “I heard your message and am acknowledging it” knock.

“I don’t really mind if you are a ghost living in here, but can you please stop making the lights flicker while I’m reading things for school!” she says indignantly.

The lights go out completely.

“That’s not what I meant! I want them back on!”

She waits. A moment later, the lights are back on and not flickering at all. “Thank you,” she says. “Whoever you are.”

When they were younger, Yerim and Jimin used to like to make up stories about their apartment building being haunted. Despite all of the nice renovations that the apartments have seen in the last several years, the building itself is old and there are a lot of local legends about scary, bloody occurrences in decades past. Sometimes Yerim isn’t sure what’s true and what she and Jimin made up when they were kids.

Yerim has never felt unsafe in her apartment. She spends most of her time there alone, as her mother is either working or spending her free time trying to reclaim some of the youth she appears to feel that she wasted raising Yerim when she was honestly nothing more than a child herself, but Yerim isn’t really scared of much, if she’s being honest. Anyway, Jimin being just on the other side of the wall always gives her a comforting feeling of never truly being alone.

She decides that she certainly isn’t going to start feeling uneasy in her own home now. If there is someone here, then Yerim is going to try to make friends with them.

“What are you doing in here?” she asks. “Was this your apartment a long time ago? I’m sorry if I’m sleeping in your room and it’s making you mad. You should flip the lights once if this used to be your bedroom.”

Nothing. Yerim laughs to herself, starting to feel a little silly for even entertaining such notions. She taps her pencil on her desk and rests her chin in her hand. “Are you mad at me?” she asks. “Flip the lights once if you are mad at me, twice if you aren’t.”

Again, there is no response. The stillness of her room feels unnatural, like whatever was there before is now going through great lengths to be extra quiet.

“Oh,” she says, wrapping a strand of her hair tightly around her pencil in an attempt to create a perfect little ringlet, “are you the person who has been braiding my hair?”

The lights flicker once, twice, three, four, five, more times than Yerim can count.

“Wow!” she gasps, clapping her hands. Her pencil flies out of her hand, but stops falling just before it reaches the floor. She watches wide-eyed as it is shakily carried by some invisible force back up to her desk and gently placed down right in front of her.

“You’re not mad at me,” she says. “I can tell that you’re actually really nice. It’s okay if you stay in here with me sometimes, you know, but I just want to warn you that sometimes I need to be alone.”

The pencil in front of her floats up again, upright and pressed against Yerim’s book report.

``

“Then where do you live?”

``

“What is your name?”

``

Yerim lets out a small whine. “Come on!” she says. “Please? Do you want to know my name? If I tell you my name, will you tell me yours?”

``

“Well, that’s not fair at all,” Yerim says, crossing her arms.

The pencil is completely still where it stands. Yerim watches it intently. It doesn’t move.

“It’s no fun if I don’t know your name,” she says. “I wish that you would tell me.”

The pencil moves slowly across the paper.

``

“Jeongguk,” Yerim whispers. “Hello, Jeongguk.” The pencil falls to the desk. Yerim can feel a weight being lifted off of her shoulders, but it doesn’t necessarily feel good. She knows that this means Jeongguk is gone.

“Jeon Jeongguk, you’d better not forget about braiding my hair tonight,” she calls out to no one. The lights remain on. Her pencil stays on the desk.

She is alone.

 

 

It’s peaceful for the next few days. Jimin insists that scary things keep happening in his house, but mostly to his parents, and always when they are screaming and threatening to kill each other as well as Jimin, and Yerim wonders if maybe her ghost has moved on to Jimin because he is generally more agreeable and less demanding. He says he hasn’t asked his ghost anything yet and doesn’t really know how. But as long as nothing is hurting him, he doesn’t really care what’s going on around him, and it feels nice to have someone looking out for him.

Yerim still wakes up every morning to find her hair in a neat, untied braid. That much remains the same. Other than that, she cannot feel Jeongguk’s presence anywhere at all. 

The next sign of Jeongguk is scribbled in Yerim’s notebook a week after their first conversation. She happens upon it when she is flipping through her math notes that she can’t quite make sense of. 

``

Yerim doesn’t exactly know what he means. She runs her fingers over his sloppy handwriting and thinks about his phantom form passing through her room late last night to leave her this note. What does he look like? Is he scary? If she has to guess, she would probably say his eyes are hollowed out and his cheeks are sunken in. His body is made of bones and nothing more. He rattles when he walks around.

She wants so badly to see him, wants to hear his rattling bones and see what it looks like to stare straight into two gaping sockets. She presses her hands together as if she is praying.

 _I wish_ , Yerim thinks to herself, _that Jeongguk would visit me later._

 

 

Jimin has afterschool tutoring that day, so Yerim walks home alone. She stomps through puddles in the schoolyard, muddy water splashing all the way up to her bare knees, and finds a suitable rock to kick the entire way home. It’s lonely without Jimin, but Yerim knows that he cherishes any and all time he spends away from home.

She picks a lilac from the garden since Jimin forgot to earlier that morning. There are plenty of other flowers to pick, but lilacs just happen to be her favorite. She tucks it into her hair the way Jimin always does and skips into the building, past the front desk, and into the elevator.

Impatiently, she hits the third floor button and waits and for the door to close.

“Jeongguk,” she says, “are you here? If you’re here, push one of the buttons!”

The fifth floor button lights up.

“Do you like my flower? Push one of the buttons if you like my flower.”

The sixth floor button lights up.

“Good! Jimin and I—Jimin’s my friend, maybe you’ve bothered him before—we found this book at the library that talked about flowers and I read that once upon a time, lilacs were sad flowers! But now—Ah, here we are!”

The elevator door opens on the third floor and Yerim hums to herself happily, resuming her skipping down the hall and to the door of her apartment. She reaches into her pocket to grab her key, but the door flies open before she can even get her hands on it.

“Wow,” she says. “Neat! Hey, Jeongguk, did you know that lilacs don’t bloom for very long? Only about a couple of weeks. It makes me sad when they are gone. Every morning, Jimin picks a lilac for me and puts it in my hair. I wish there were lilacs forever, and ever, and ever!”

It’s no fun, talking to someone who can’t answer. Yerim sits down on the floor and opens her backpack, pulling out a notebook and pencil. She sets them out in front of her. “You’ll talk to me, right?” she asks. The pencil is slowly lifted into the air as the notebook flips open.

``

“You’re really smart, aren’t you? How do you know that?”

``

“Ahhh,” Yerim says. She twists a lock of her hair around her finger. “I wish you weren’t—”

The lights flicker off and on again rapidly. Yerim holds her hands over her mouth and watches a frantic message scribble in the notebook in front of her.

“Why?”

Yerim sighs and falls backwards, spreading her arms out and making fake snow angel on the floor. There are already too many things she simply does not understand about the world around her. Now she has to try and understand a completely new world—Jeongguk’s world, whatever that means. She rolls over on her side and props her head up so she can see the notebook.

“Can I see you?” she asks.

“Nothing scares me,” Yerim says. “Seriously! Show me what you look like! I want to know.”

“Ugh, Jeongguk!” Yerim groans. She stops and thinks for a second. Maybe there is a way she can make this happen. It probably isn’t very nice, but it’s the only way she can think of to make Jeongguk appear to her. “I wish I could see you, Jeon Jeongguk!”

The apartment shakes violently, pictures dropping off the walls and food falling out of the cabinets in the kitchen. All of the furniture shakes and slides across the floor and Yerim has absolutely no idea how she is going to explain this mess to her mother if she doesn’t stop it before it gets too out of hand.

Yerim has felt an earthquake before, a small one when she was just about five years old, and this is much scarier than that. She can see the shadow of a silhouette in front of her as the lights flicker on and off.

“I’m absolutely not scared at all,” she says, sitting upright and hugging her knees to her chest. She shuts her eyes tightly. “I’m not scared. I’m really, really not scared of this! So stop trying to scare me, Jeon Jeongguk! I wish you would _stop_!”

And just like that, everything goes back to normal. That unnatural silence washes over her again. She slowly opens her eyes, not knowing what she should even be expecting.

“Kim Yerim, are you happy now?”

Jeon Jeongguk is not made of nothing but bones. His eyes aren’t empty voids. He is just a boy. His hair is raven black and his front teeth make him look like a nervous little rabbit. He’s swallowed up by a jacket that looks like it’s about three sizes too big for him, the sleeves completely covering up both of his hands.  Yerim wants to ask him if that was what he was wearing when he died, but she figures that is probably too rude for her for their first face-to-face encounter.

“I’m happy,” Yerim says, nodding. “I’m happy that you’re here.” She twists and knots her fingers in hair trying to find the lilac, unable to take her eyes off of Jeongguk all the while. “This is for you,” she says, pulling the flower out from behind her ear and extending her gift to Jeongguk.

He takes it. “Thank you,” he says. He stares at it like he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do with it.

“Here,” Yerim says, grabbing the lilac. She hesitantly holds her hand a few centimeters away from Jeongguk’s hair. “I hope this is okay,” she mutters, feeling a little more embarrassed than she normally would expect of herself. She carefully places the lilac in Jeongguk’s hair and makes sure it is secure and snug. A sharp pain shoots from her finger tips and up her arm. She winces and jerks her hand back.

“I figured that would happen,” Jeongguk says. He lightly brushes his fingers against the soft purple petals of the lilac. “Thank you, Kim Yerim.”

“Why does it hurt when I touch you?” Yerim asks, cautiously reaching out to touch Jeongguk’s pallid face, despite knowing what awaits. She can’t tell if she’s just morbidly curious or simply dying to touch him for reasons she can’t quite understand.

Jeongguk dodges away from her. “Well, we’re not exactly supposed to be seeing each other like this. I guess it’s the universe’s way of telling you that you probably need to stay away from me.”

Yerim doesn’t really care what the universe has to say about this. She tilts her head. Jeongguk tilts his as well.

“I like your voice,” she says.

“I like yours, too.”

Yerim blushes. “Thank you for braiding my hair every night,” she says. “It makes it look pretty in the morning.”

“I have to do that,” Jeongguk says. “If I didn’t do that, something bad would happen to you. Please don’t misunderstand my intentions.”

“Something bad,” Yerim repeats. “Tell me about bad things!” She grabs Jeongguk’s hand and clasps it tightly in her own. The pain pulses in her fingertips, up her arms, and slowly spreads to the rest of her body. But she doesn’t want to let go. She won’t let go.

“Why do you want to know about bad things?” Jeongguk asks. “You’re so weird.”

“Are there other ghosts?” Yerim asks. “Are they evil? Are _you_ evil?” She gasps. “I think I know what this is! You’re an evil demon boy who has fallen in love with the cute human girl who lives in the apartment he used to live in! That’s it, isn’t it? Do you have any other demon friends? Can I meet them?”

Jeongguk pulls his hand away from Yerim. He sits cross-legged, levitating in the air and Yerim’s eyes widen the higher he gets off the ground. “I don’t know what we are, but I most definitely wouldn’t say that we are demons. There are quite a few of us in this building. I’m not evil, and you aren’t as cute as you think you are.”

“Sure I am,” Yerim says confidently. Jeongguk opens his mouth to argue with her, but Yerim abruptly hushes him and holds her index finger up to her lips. She can faintly hear the sound of rhythmic knocking coming from her bedroom. “Hang on a second!”

Jimin is home. Yerim slides across the hardwood floor of the living room and into her bedroom. This particular pattern of knocking means, “My parents are mad at me tonight and I can’t come over for dinner.” Yerim sighs and falls onto her bed, grabbing one of her pillows and clutching it to her chest. She softly knocks back to let Jimin know that his message was received.

“You’re close with him,” Jeongguk observes, floating above the foot of Yerim’s bed.

“He’s my best friend! He’s just… soft, and quiet, and he doesn’t ask for much. And he knows the kinds of flowers I like the most. He knows all about my favorite foods and he always tells me goodnight before bed. I love him.”

“It’s that easy to be loved by you?”

Yerim nods.

Suddenly she remembers something she had been meaning to ask Jeongguk earlier. She rolls over on her stomach and kicks her feet around excitedly. “Do you go over Jimin’s apartment? Or is that someone else?” she asks. It’s not that she minds sharing, it’s just that she would be happy if she and Jimin could both have their own special ghost person.

“I have been there once or twice. But there is someone else staying there,” Jeongguk replies. “His name is Yoongi. Jimin is not nearly as talkative as you are, though, so Yoongi is able to live pretty peacefully for the most part.”

“Does Yoongi like Jimin?”

Jeongguk looks confused at first, but his look of confusion quickly fades into a soft smile. “Yes,” he says. “Because he’s soft and quiet and doesn’t ask for much.”

“Do you like me?” Yerim asks. “Is that why you’re always hanging around and worrying about me?”

“Why do you flatter yourself so much?”

“Is there someone trying to kill me? Is that why you want to protect me so much?”

“Does it give you a thrill to imagine yourself in life threatening situations? Why do you ask so many questions?”

“Are there evil demons in my room?”

Jeongguk doesn’t answer her immediately.

“Yes! That means yes, right?” Yerim asks excitedly, clapping her hands together. “Who are they? What are their names?”

“They’re not just in your room,” Jeongguk says finally. “They’re all over the place. But they do come in here sometimes. They aren’t happy with where they are right now. They weren’t ready to die, and they still can’t accept that they’ve died, and it’s made them rotten.”

“That’s so sad,” Yerim sighs. “They want to be alive again.”

Jeongguk nods. “But as far as I can tell, that’s just not the way things are supposed to work. I don’t think you can just pick up where you left off once you’ve been dead for fifty years. Then again, I don’t really know for sure. It just doesn’t seem right to me. And what kind of life would that be, anyway? Your family, all of your friends… everyone would be gone. That’s terribly sad, if you ask me.”

Yerim has to admit, she doesn’t know much about the social norms of ghosts or demons or whatever, and what it is and is not appropriate to bring up in conversation with them. So she figures that Jeongguk will at least have to be a little sensitive to her in that regard.

“How did they die?” she asks. There is no way Jeongguk could possibly expect her to not be curious about this. It’s gnawing at her far too much to keep quiet about. 

“They were murdered,” Jeongguk says coolly, as if he is talking about the weather. “They don’t simply _just_ want to be alive again. They want revenge. On anyone remaining on this earth who is tied to the person who ended their lives. We are not supposed to interfere with the affairs of humans, generally. If someone is alive, it’s because they are meant to be alive.”

“But can humans interfere with the affairs of you all?”

“I suppose so. I mean, they frequently do whether they are meant to or not.”

“How confusing,” Yerim says.

There is a gentle rapping on the wall.

“What does that one mean?” Jeongguk asks.

“It means that he misses me and that he wants to see me,” Yeri explains, returning the message with the same rhythmic knocking. “I bet if you met Jimin, you’d fall in love with him just like that.”

“Hmm, I don’t know about that,” Jeongguk says. “Maybe I’ll have to go see.”

Yerim grabs one of her pillows and tosses at Jeongguk. Unsurprisingly, it goes straight through him, and leaves him looking a little transparent for a few minutes afterwards. “It’s not fair if Jimin has a million ghost friends and I don’t have any,” she whines. “Hey! How come I can touch you just fine, but when I throw something at you it just goes straight through?”

At this point, Jeongguk is creating a sizeable space between himself and Yerim. She should have figured that a ghost would be standoffish like this. “I wanted you to touch me,” he admits. Maybe if he could, he would be blushing right now. “I wanted to know what it felt like.”

He floats back to Yerim’s desk and gently sits down on top of it, legs crossed like he is getting ready to meditate. 

“So you really do like me,” Yerim yawns, rolling over so that her back is facing Jeongguk. The sun is setting—a little too early for bed, but she’s exhausted for some reason or another. As she is drifting in and out of sleep, Jeongguk apologizes to her, telling her that being around him will most definitely make her tired and drain her of energy that she would normally have. That’s just the way it works. But she’ll get stronger eventually.

If she wants him to be around, then she will most definitely get stronger.

She does want him to be around, but she is too tired to say so.

The next morning she wakes up with lilacs braided into her hair, and a small bouquet beside her head.

 

 

Yerim can hear a racket coming from Jimin’s room. It isn’t the usual screaming fits that let Yerim know that Jimin’s parents are home and ready to make his life miserable. She can hear Jimin’s voice and he’s laughing. He sounds so unbelievably happy. She hears another voice that she doesn’t recognize, one that’s low and sweet.

“Jeongguk,” Yerim says. It’s easy to get him to show up now. All she has to do is call his name.

“What?” he asks, hollow, bodyless voice echoing through her bedroom.

“Is that Yoongi?”

“Yes.” Jeongguk finally shows himself, sitting at the foot of her bed as he usually does. Lately he allows himself to sit directly on it rather than float a few above it.

“They get along well. You should tell Yoongi to stop stealing my best friend from me! I haven’t seen him all weekend. It’s almost midnight and he’s hardly talked to me at all today! Normally we go to the park on Saturday. Or go see a movie. But guess what I’ve been doing? Sitting in my room by myself!”

“Is my company not good enough for you?” Jeongguk asks. “Oh, I wanted to let you know…” He waves his hand and produces a handful of lilacs. “The garden is overrun with these, even though they should have wilted weeks ago.”

Yerim reaches her arms out and grabs at the flowers. Jeongguk floats them over to her and she catches them eagerly, holding them to her nose and enjoying the subtle sweetness of their scent. “I wanted to ask you something,” she says, moving her curtains back and putting the lilacs into the Mason jar she keeps for all of the flowers Jeongguk brings her. It’s funny to her that they always tend to keep longer than any other flower she has ever displayed in her room. “Your hand—your left one. How come you always keep it hidden in your jacket?”

Jeongguk blinks.

“What, did you think I would never notice? I’m very observant. Incredibly perceptive.”

“Well, the truth is, Yerim… That’s for me to know and you to never found out.”

Yerim doesn’t much care for that answer. It would be easy to simply wish for Jeongguk to reveal his left hand to her. But that isn’t the way she wants to do this. She wants Jeongguk to trust her enough to show her himself, not be forced by powers that Yerim can’t even quite comprehend to feel compelled to obey her every whim. It’s almost too much for Yerim to handle, knowing that any stray thought could turn into an actual, real thing catered specifically to her liking.

She has asked Jeongguk why more times than she can count, and he always tells her the same thing. All humans have something special about them. All humans have a quiet strength, a force of will that is necessary for their survival. Some humans have it sitting in the back of their minds. Others have it flowing through their veins. That is Yerim. There are many others like her in the world.

“One day you’ll show me,” Yerim sing-songs, spinning around on her heels and turning down the covers on her bed. She’s exhausted from a long day spent doing absolutely nothing.

As she is climbing into bed, a thought occurs to her.

“Jeongguk,” she says, “tonight I’m going to stay up late enough so I can see you braid my hair.”

“You can’t,” Jeongguk says. “You absolutely can’t.”

“How come?” She most certainly fully intends to stay awake, but she’s already comfortably warm under her blankets and her eyes are starting to feel heavy. Without even having to be asked, Jeongguk snaps his fingers and turns the light off for her.

Jeongguk answers her with a shrug. He looks at her contemplatively and finally says, “I don’t know why you expect me to have all of the answers. I just know that there is a small stretch of time that exists outside your own. That’s how I can arrive, and make myself visible, and interact with you in that way without you specifically calling on me. It’s at the same time every night. You can try and stay awake if you want to, but it’s pointless.”

“Why… do you…” Yerim yawns. “I forgot what I was going to ask.”

Jeongguk smiles, floats over to her and holds his hand mere centimeters over her eyes. “Just go to sleep, Yerim. We can talk more tomorrow,’ he whispers.

She dreams of nothing in particular. It’s mostly sounds. Jimin’s parents screaming from the other side of the wall. Jimin’s crying, and the rumble of an unfamiliar voice comforting him. But the crying doesn’t sound like Jimin’s anymore. It’s someone else. Someone Yerim has never met before.

Yerim’s eyes shoot open. She glances at the clock by her bed. It’s five in the morning. The crying sound from her dream is now coming from the corner of her room.

“Hey,” she says, rubbing her eyes. She squints at the person and tries to get a good look at them through her blurred vision. “Are you okay?”

She finally manages to focus her eyes on a beautiful woman. The woman’s long, flowing black hair falls in perfect tendrils down her back. She is wearing robes designed with intricately stitched flowers of blues and greens and purples. Tears slide over the sharp angles of her face, down the slope of her hooked nose.

“What’s your name?” Yerim asks.

“Seulgi,” the woman replies, giving up her name much easier than Jeongguk had. Her voice is soft but hoarse, rough in a way that sounds like she doesn’t use it very much.

“Seulgi,” Yerim repeats quietly. “Seulgi, are you okay? Am I in your room? Is that why you’re crying?”

Seulgi nods, locks of hair falling over her shoulders. “You… can help me,” she says slowly. The agonizing seconds between each word make Yerim feel like it’s been a very long time since she has actually talked to anyone else.

“Kang Seulgi!” The bedroom lights switch on, then off, and then on again, and Jeongguk is standing in the middle of the room, blocking Seulgi from Yerim’s view.

“Ah, here we go again. Is it so wrong, Jeon Jeongguk?” Seulgi asks.

“It is,” Jeongguk says. “There’s a reason why I have made it so you can’t get anywhere near her.”

Seulgi laughs. It isn’t beautiful like Yerim would have expected it to be. There’s a venomous quality to it, something toxic and evil and it makes Yerim feels very scared. Such an ugly sound should not be able to come from such a beautiful woman.

“Then I suppose I will leave,” Seulgi says. She peeks around Jeongguk. “Don’t worry, little star. I’ll see you again. That’s what you are, you know? Our shining, shining star.”

She’s gone in the blink of an eye. Yerim sighs and falls back against her pillow. This is almost too much for her to handle. She reminds herself over and over again that she’s not afraid. She’s not afraid of anything. Nothing, absolutely nothing at all can scare her. It works for a few seconds.

“Are you okay?” Jeongguk asks, turning around to face her but doing nothing to close the space in between them. He doesn’t look particularly bothered. Yerim wonders how many times Seulgi has been in her room, haunting the corner in the dark, crying her eyes out until the break of dawn.

“I’m fine,” Yerim says. “But now I’m all awake. Talk with me until I go back to sleep.” She plays with the end of her hair—Jeongguk is doing a good job at remembering to tie the braid up in a ribbon every night. Yerim likes it much better that way.

Jeongguk cautiously moves over to the side of Yerim’s bed and sits on the floor, as if he is taking special care not to frighten her. Yerim thinks he should most certainly know better than that. It’s impossible to feel scared when Jeongguk is around. Still, she thinks it wouldn’t hurt to humor him.

“Since I’m all scared now, you should show me your hand so I’ll feel better,” Yerim says.

“Well, actually,” Jeongguk says, “you don’t seem very scared at all. You seem pretty calm to me. Don’t try to fool me, Yerim, it will never work.”

“You’re right, I guess. It’s hard to be scared when I know you’re always going to be taking care of me,” Yerim says. She pulls her blanket over her face, covering her mouth and her nose and leaving only her eyes uncovered. “Tell me something nice. Something lovely.”

Jeongguk holds his hand over Yerim’s head, moves it gently, rhythmically the way he would if he could pet her hair. He whispers, “I learned a poem for you. I think you’ll like it. _When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, and the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet small mourn with ever-returning spring_.”

Yerim closes her eyes.

Jeongguk continues, “ _Ever returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west..._ Yerim, are you still awake?”

“Mmm.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I could kiss you right now, Yerim.”

“I wish—” Yerim stops herself and sighs. “I would like for you to be able to kiss me,” she says. It’s hard sometimes, always having to be so careful of her words. “I like that poem a lot. _And thought of him I love_.”

“That’s right,” Jeongguk says. He hesitates for a moment and then lightly touches the tips of his fingers to Yerim’s hair. “I should have known you would like that one.”

Jeongguk’s fingers running through her hair hardly hurts at all. Yerim sleeps well into the morning.

 

 

“I’m telling you,” Yerim says, struggling to zip her duffel bag around her haphazardly packed pajamas and teddy bear, “you are more than welcome to come with me. What’s your deal, anyway? Are you scared? Of _Jimin_?”

“No. Unlike you, I can truthfully say that I am actually not scared of anything,” Jeongguk huffs. He’s a liar. Yerim knows that deep down under all of his snotty condescension, Jeongguk’s just a regular, shy boy who just happens to be able to float around and ward off evil spirits.

The first few days of summer vacation means that Jimin’s parents are off on some cruise that they spend months saving up for, their reasoning being that it’s difficult raising Jimin and they need their time away from him every now and again. That’s fine with Jimin, because he doesn’t much care for the idea of going on a cruise (“Did you know that people just vanish on those things, Yerim?”) and it means that he and Yerim get to have an extended sleepover with no stress whatsoever.

“I’m going to miss you,” Yerim pouts.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.”

Yerim presses her hand against her cheek and looks her room over once more. She is absolutely positive that she hasn’t forgotten to pack anything important. Jeongguk sits as still as a statue on the end of her bed and he’s looking a bit more dour than usual. But it’s his own fault if he’s going to be complicated.

She figures that she will probably be alright for a couple of days. But she is just so used to having Jeongguk around, whether he is actually visible to her, or his presence is simply lingering after he has gone off to do whatever it is he does to keep himself busy during the day.

It happened before she even realized it—Jeongguk gradually becoming just another part of her daily routine. She wakes up and takes the braid out of her hair and says good morning to him even if he doesn’t answer back. She flips through her notebook at school, hoping that he has left her a message to see her through the day. Most of the time, he has. He insists on not disturbing her while she’s doing her homework, but if she chides at him enough, he will almost always keep her company.

When she wants to be alone, he leaves her alone. When she wants someone to talk to, he will rush to her side. It’s almost too good to be true.

She’s never asked him what he does or where he goes. She doesn’t know much about what Jeongguk’s daily life consists of. But every day she can hear passing conversations of unfamiliar voices more and more. Their laughter echoes louder and louder the more time she spends with Jeongguk. She has no idea how many of these spirits lurk and move and live throughout the building, but for the most part, they seem very nice.

She figures that if he can spend his days laughing and chatting like the others do, surely he cannot be too unhappy.

“I’m going now,” she says. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

Jeongguk gives her a look that she doesn’t quite know the meaning of. “Have fun,” he says. “Be good.”

“No, _you_ be good,” Yerim returns, spinning around on her heels and marching out the door. She promises herself that she absolutely will not turn around and ask him one more time if he wants to come meet Jimin.

She turns around anyway. Jeongguk is already gone.

 

 

“Jeongguk is moody sometimes. He likes to try to act tough. It makes me so angry, because I know that deep down, he’s a big baby and he’s really nice and wonderful,” Yerim says. She tries for the fifth time to braid her hair the way Jeongguk tried to teach her, but she still doesn’t quite get it. She’ll probably never get it right. “Tell me about Yoongi.”

Jimin swallows really hard. Probably because he’s trying not to look too excited, Yerim figures. But his eyes light up the second he hears Yoongi’s name.

“Yoongi likes to scare my parents when they start fighting. If they act like they’re going to hit me, he makes things fall off the wall and makes all the doors slam really loud. They’re kind of scared of me now. It’s nice,” Jimin says, hugging his knees to his chest.

“Have they been leaving you alone?” Yerim asks. She grabs one of the toys on Jimin’s bed—a big, fat Pikachu that the two of them had bought together four years ago on Jimin’s birthday—and holds it tightly, resting her head on it.

Jimin nods. “They think I’m _evil_ and _scary_ ,” he says, smiling proudly. That’s one way to deal with parents as terrible as his. “Now they want to move out of this apartment. I don’t think we ever will, but they talk about it a lot.”

“My mom talks about that sometimes, too. She got a raise at work so she thinks we should move across town or something. I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“I don’t want to go…” Jimin says hesitantly. His ears are red. Yerim smiles. “I don’t want to leave Yoongi.”

This isn’t something Yerim particularly likes to think about, so she is pretty good at pushing it out of her mind whenever it creeps up on her.

As she understands it, Jeongguk has relatively free range and can go wherever he wants to throughout the day. But there is something that keeps him tied to this old building. She doesn’t know if he can leave.

Or if he would even want to.

“Do you ever… see Yoongi?” It’s a question that has been on Yerim’s mind for quite some time. Jimin tends to be quiet about most things, never offering too much information unless Yerim pries it out of him.

“Sure I do,” Jimin says. “But he’s off somewhere else right now. Sometimes I can hear him, even when he’s not here. Lately… I can hear lots of voices. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I can see other spirits passing through my room. It’s like they’re barely here, and if I tried to touch them my hand would go straight through. It’s kind of scary. There’s just another world that we aren’t even supposed to see.”

“And yet we’re seeing it,” Yerim says. Thinking about this too much gives her a headache. “Do you ever sometimes wish that… it wasn’t this way?” she asks quietly. She is unsure of her own answer to this question. Maybe she just needs some validation from another person. This is okay. It’s alright. It may not make any sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.

Jimin is silent for a moment. He takes a deep breath and looks around his room. Yerim’s not sure why—maybe Yoongi is there. Maybe Yoongi’s presence is wrapping itself around Jimin, something only Jimin can recognize and feel and appreciate.

“No,” he says softly, and it barely reaches Yerim’s ears. “I wouldn’t trade Yoongi for anything.”

Yerim doesn’t know what to say. She tugs at her hair and tries again, and again, and again to recreate what it is Jeongguk does for her to keep her safe every night from some vague, abstract feeling of danger she cannot even really understand. And she fails again, and again, and again, and is forced to accept what she has been so scared to acknowledge—that Jeongguk isn’t simply someone that she wants to spend time occasionally. He isn’t just a passing, intangible concept anymore.

Jeongguk is something that she needs, something that she cannot live without.

 

 

The apartment is dead quiet when Yerim finally returns home. Her mom is working overtime—she is apparently very serious about moving into a new, nicer place across town and Yerim decides that she would rather not think about it right now. She immediately turns on the television so she can drown out these thoughts out with background noise.

“Jeongguk,” she says. He doesn’t answer. “Jeongguk!”

“What, you hateful little thing?” he asks. He sounds very far away.

“Oh, please don’t let me interrupt you and all of your ghostly affairs,” Yerim says, curling up on the couch. “I just thought you would like to see me, since I’m sure you were missing me so much!”

“Missing you? Please. Do you know how relaxing it was to not have to worry over you for once? You’re lucky that spirits tend to get a little stupid the more troubled and angry they get. They had no idea you were simply one room over.”

Yerim doesn’t like the idea of evil spirits crying and moaning around in her room while she isn’t there, but there isn’t much she can do about that. “Can you come here?” she asks. “Like, really come here where I can see you and everything.”

Jeongguk obliges without a fight. He appears behind the couch and puts his hands in front of Yerim’s eyes.

The space between his hands and her eyes is _just_ so. It drives Yerim crazy.

“Jeongguk,” she says. He floats over the back of the couch and sits down next to her. If she doesn’t think about it too much, she can pretend that this is normal. Jeongguk is just a boy from school. He lives down the block. His parents own a little shop, but he wants to go away to college instead of inheriting their burdens. They’ve liked each other for a long time and now Yerim is ready to confess her feelings. She wants Jeongguk to be her boyfriend.

It’s a nice fantasy, but it can only last for so long.

“What? Why do you look so upset?”

“Do you like me, Jeongguk?”

Maybe Yerim is imagining things, but for a split second Jeongguk completely disappears from her sight. It’s probably his first instinct to simply fade away rather than talk about unpleasant things—because even though this type of conversation shouldn’t be unpleasant in itself, it has to be for the two of them.

“I’ve gotten used to you,” he says slowly, like each individual word has taken him a lifetime to pick out. “I like being around you. Spirits, and ghosts, and the like… we don’t do well unless we have something good to keep us grounded. You keep me grounded, Yerim.”

“So that’s definitely a yes,” Yerim teases. She goes to nudge Jeongguk with her elbow, but then stops. She can’t do that. And it’s not fair.

Jeongguk looks at her like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. She knows that it kills him when there is something he simply cannot make right.  

“I wish,” she says, “that I could touch you. I wish that I could touch you whenever I wanted, and it didn’t hurt at all.”

There’s a heavy, hungry silence between the two of them. They are both  completely still and unwavering, looking at each other but neither being able to make the first move. A nagging feeling in her gut tells her that it’s hopeless. No amount of wishing and wanting will change the fact that she is here and Jeongguk is there, and she isn’t even quite sure what that means. It’s impossible for her to understand how they can be so close to each other, but still in completely different worlds.

Yerim reaches out and grabs Jeongguk’s hand before he can even resist. It hurts, as it always has, that dull throbbing that always makes its way up to her head one way or another. But she doesn’t pull away. A headache is nothing compared to the bliss she feels just being able to sit here like this with him. 

“Is it okay?” Jeongguk asks. He holds onto Yerim’s hand as lightly and delicately as he can manage, as if she is made of glass.  

“It’s fine,” Yerim lies. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. So now I can do this.”

She cups Jeongguk’s chin in her hand and just takes this in for a moment. His pale skin. His reddened eyelids. The curve and hook of his nose. Then she kisses him. It’s hot and cold at the same time and tastes like mostly nothing. Her head is pounding, but he leans into her, and she can’t end this now.

This isn’t Yerim’s first kiss. That was shared years ago with Jimin underneath the slide on the playground where no one could see. She gave it another go two years later at a school dance after a football game and Jimin sheepishly told her that he liked the idea of kissing Kim Taehyung a hundred times more than kissing any of the girls in their class.

But it’s the first time that Yerim has had this sinking feeling in her stomach, the one that hurts but in the best way imaginable. She’s crying by the time she pulls away from Jeongguk, because the pounding in her head is too much for her to handle.

“Why…?” Jeongguk can’t even manage a complete sentence. He wipes Yerim’s eyes and laughs. “You’re so silly,” he says. “Humans are silly. Always crying and making a fuss. When they’re happy or when they’re sad, it’s always the same response. It’s sweet.”

Yerim sniffs and grabs the sleeve of Jeongguk’s jacket, the one that he keeps over his left hand at all times. “Can I see this now?” she asks.

“Oh, I see,” Jeongguk says, pulling his arm away from her. “You were just trying to warm me up so I would show you my hand.”

“Not quite,” Yerim says. “But I think it’s only right. Since you like me so much.”

“Who said I like you? You’re putting words in my mouth.”

Yerim pouts, but she knows that Jeongguk is pretty much immune to anything of that sort. Still, it’s worth a shot.

He looks at her and then to his concealed hand. “I guess… if you really want to see it? But you have to promise you won’t scream. Or get grossed out. Promise me that it won’t make you scared of me?”

“Jeongguk, I’m pretty sure things can’t get any weirder or scarier than they already are,” Yerim says.

“Fine,” Jeongguk says. He holds his hand up in front of Yerim’s face and shakes back the sleeve of his jacket slowly. “Here you go, I guess.”

Yerim doesn’t scream. She doesn’t even bat an eye. His hand is hardly that, it’s merely the skeletal remains of what it once was when he was alive. No flesh, no muscle, only bones. She reaches out and touches it lightly. Surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt. 

“Oh,” she says.

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

“Why?”

Jeongguk shrugs and pulls his sleeve back down over the rattling bones. Yerim remembers the image she used to have of Jeongguk in her head before he actually revealed himself to her. Nothing more than a walking skeleton. She wonders if maybe this is somehow her fault, but she is too anxious to ask.

“It’s my whole arm. I think it has something to do with how I died? But I can’t remember much.”

“Ah,” Yerim sighs. “I love it. I think it’s beautiful.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Jeongguk says. “I know it’s ugly. That’s why I never wanted you to see it.”

Yerim shakes her head. “I wouldn’t lie about this. I love everything about you, even this. Jeongguk, I love y—”

Jeongguk places his finger over her lips, still keeping a bit of space between them. Force of habit. “Don’t say that, Yerim,” he says quietly. “It’ll just lead to trouble. It’s not supposed to be like this. You know that. We’ve both always known that.”

“I don’t care how it’s supposed to be,” Yerim says, smacking Jeongguk’s hand away from her. “You’re the only one who cares so much about all these rules and regulations that you aren’t even sure actually exist! I can’t wish for you to be alive again, I can’t tell you I love you… I can’t do anything that I want to do, Jeongguk, all because you tell me that it’s not the way it’s supposed to be! How do you know how it’s supposed to be? Huh? You’re just running based on guesses and assumptions, but you don’t actually know anything!”

“Better to be safe than to let _you_ do something foolish that will hurt you,” Jeongguk retorts. He’s on the other side of the room now.

“Is it asking too much of you to just not do your weird teleporting ghost shit when I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you?” Yerim asks. She wishes that she could do the things Jeongguk does. Disappear at will. Create an infinite amount of space between the two of them in the blink of an eye. Let him know how much it hurts to see just how desperately he wants to get away from her sometimes.

“We’re not having a conversation right now, Yerim,” Jeongguk says. “This is over.”

Yerim blinks and he is gone.

 

 

 

The only feeling registering in Yerim’s mind when she wakes up and sees a tall, shadowy figure standing in the corner of her room is pure annoyance. She pats the side of her head and feels that her hair has been braided. Even though it has been several days since she last spoke to Jeongguk, and sometimes she feels like maybe he never wants to speak to her again, he hasn’t given up on her.

“Hey,” she says. “I don’t have time for this! I don’t know what you think I could possibly do for you, but I probably can’t do anything! What are you doing here, huh? Why are you bothering me? Just find someone else to haunt! I don’t want to deal with any of you weirdos anymore. Hey! Why aren’t you answering me? What’s your name, anyway?”

“Seokjin.”

His voice echoes like a feedback loop. Yerim covers her ears. “Well, Seokjin, can you please leave me alone? I’m trying to sleep.”

“I’m wondering,” Seokjin says, and it doesn’t get any easier to listen to his voice, “if you would be running your mouth like that without your little guard dog taking care of you?”

“What a stupid question,” Yerim says, pulling her blankets over her head and curling up in a ball. “Just leave me alone.”

“It would be so easy for you to help us, Yerim. Think of how many times your wishes have come true right in front of your eyes. Wish us back into your world. I promise we won’t hurt you.”

For a second, Yerim thinks she should do it just to spite Jeongguk. But she quickly realizes the gravity of the situation, and the fact that she is dealing with things far beyond her comprehension. The laws of this life and the next dictate that a certain balance must be maintained and Yerim does not want to mess with that balance, even if she really has no idea how it is even achieved in the first place.

“I won’t,” Yerim says.

“We don’t want to hurt anybody,” Seokjin says. She can feel him inching closer and closer to her. Maybe he is stronger than Seulgi, or maybe Jeongguk isn’t as strong as Yerim thinks he is. “We don’t want to have to hurt you, or Jeongguk, or anyone else. Do you understand, little star? Do you understand that you are our only beacon of hope to escape this _rotten_ afterlife?”

“I can’t possibly be the only one,” Yerim says, peeking out from behind her blanket. Seokjin is handsome. He was probably warm and kind when he was alive. She can see it in his eyes.

Yerim’s heart breaks for him, but she will not do what he asks.

“What have I told you about coming in here?” Yerim sits up at the comforting sound of this familiar voice. Jeongguk is sitting on top of her desk, arms crossed and looking positively surly.  

“There you are, little bird,” Seokjin coos. “You’re never too far, are you?”

“There are only so many places to go,” Jeongguk says. “This room being one of them.”

Seokjin closes his eyes and smiles. He takes another step towards Yerim, and that’s when she sees it—the closer he gets, the more flesh drips from his bones. His eyes hang out of their sockets and rest on the cheek bones of his skull. He steps backwards and his body returns to its normal state.

“Clever, isn’t it? This little bird is a troublesome one,” Seokjin laughs. “Instead of simply creating a barrier around that which he wants to protect, he gives us the false hope that we can actually get near you. Then once we try… that is what happen. How droll.”

Jeongguk tilts his head and cracks his knuckles.

“I guess maybe that’s a sign you shouldn’t be near me,” Yerim says, trying to put on an air of bravery that winds up being completely transparent. She gets a cold chill as Seokjin stares right into her eyes.

“Oh?”

“Leave. I’m not scared of you. I mean it.”

Seokjin’s eyes widen the slightest bit. He takes several steps back. “Fine,” he says. “If you insist.”

He doesn’t disappear from sight instantaneously the way Jeongguk always does. He fades away slowly. Neither Jeongguk nor Yerim speak a word until the heavy, smothering presence of Seokjin is gone from Yerim’s room completely.

Once it is, Jeongguk makes sure he gets the first word in. “I figured something like this would happen soon,” he says.

“Well, I was doing just fine without you,” Yerim huffs. “Why did you even come back anyway? I don’t need you here all the time, you know. I can take care of myself. I’m the one who made him leave.”

“I don’t doubt that, but we’re kind of dealing with things out of your capabilities right now. That’s why I’m here. And… Yerim, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did.”

Yerim rolls over and faces her back towards Jeongguk. “You should be,” she says. “You were totally rude and it was way out of line! Why don’t you have any manners, Jeongguk? Is that one of the privileges of being dead? You get to talk to people however you want?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there isn’t much about being dead that really makes any sense. I’m sorry if I take that out on you sometimes.”

“I don’t accept that apology!” Yerim says. “I don’t accept it because you will just use this as an excuse whenever you are in a bad mood and can’t be bothered to be nice to me. Look, Jeongguk, this is confusing for me, too.” Her voice softens. She buries her face in her comforter. “I don’t understand anything except that I like it when you’re around me. And I really do think I love you.”

“I think I love you, too, Yerim. That’s what’s so bad about this,” Jeongguk says quietly. He moves from Yerim’s desk to the side of her bed. He gently brushes her cheek with the back of his hand.

Alarmed by the surge of pain from the sudden touch, Yerim winces and moves herself away. It’s only after she looks over her shoulder and sees the horrified look on Jeongguk’s face does she realize what she has done.

“Jeongguk…” she starts, but she has no idea what to say. She has been caught.

“The other day… when I was holding your hand, and when you kissed me… you lied?” Jeongguk asks. “Even though it was hurting you, you still did it… and you lied to me. Yerim—”

“I know, I know!” Yerim says, pulling her comforter over her head completely. “I’m a liar and I did something stupid! Sorry! I really just wanted to touch you for a few minutes. I just wanted to know what it was like. Please don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Jeongguk says, and Yerim can quickly deduce that he is telling the truth, no matter how his tone sounds. “I just hate that I hurt you. And that you let yourself be hurt. But this is what I’m talking about… Things aren’t supposed to be the way they are. I’m not supposed to be here talking to you right now. You’re never supposed to hold my hand or kiss me.”

“I don’t want it to be that way,” Yerim says quietly. She sits up and grabs Jeongguk’s arm, pulls back his left jacket sleeve. “Look,” she says, linking her fingers with the bones of his hand. “This doesn’t hurt. I can hold your hand like that.”

“Doesn’t that gross you out?” Jeongguk asks. He tries to pull away from her, but her grip is too strong. “You’re weird, Yerim.”

“My mom wants to move,” Yerim says abruptly. “She is bringing in more money now, so… she wants us to move to a nicer place. But I don’t really think I want her to.”

Jeongguk’s face lights up in a way Yerim has never seen before. She doesn’t know what reaction she was expecting from him, but it certainly wasn’t utter and absolute joy.  “That’s excellent. It will get you away from all this. Give you the chance to be normal again.”

Yerim doesn’t really give a shit about being normal—and what does that even mean anyway? Normal. Everything that’s scary and confusing and strange has become normal to her. The low, sad moaning she hears every time she’s down in the basement doing laundry after midnight. The faceless, nameless voices that wake her up every morning with their laughter. Every figment she spots just out of the corner of her eye that disappears as she turns around to greet it.

And Jeongguk. 

Jeongguk is what’s normal. Jeongguk is what makes sense, even when he doesn’t really.

The feeling of bones in her hand. Creaking joints against her skin. It’s disgusting, and it’s all that she has.

“I would rather stay here, I think,” she says.

“Even after what just happened with Seokjin?” Jeongguk asks.

Yerim nods.

“I don’t want to scare you, but it’s only going to get worse from here on out. Spirits like Seulgi and Seokjin only get more and more corrupted and rotten as time goes on. And there’s only so much I can do, Yerim… Although we exist outside of human morality, and we are not bound by any code of law that dictates how we should act in order to avoid punishment, it’s the state of our mortal souls that pays the price when we fight… when we hurt humans or hurt one another.  The second I behave as they do is the second I become as cruel and evil as they are. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” Yerim says lightly, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “I understand. It doesn’t really change how I feel, though.”

“You,” Jeongguk says, leaning in as close as he can to Yerim without actually pressing his lips against hers, “are so stubborn.”

Yerim kisses him, recoils instantly, and then kisses him again. “I know,” she says. “So are you.”

“I know.”

 

 

“Yerim… Yerim, wake up!”

It’s too early for this. Yerim rolls over and stretches her arms over her head. “What is it, Mom?” she asks, yawing.

“I’m heading across town to the new apartment. You’ll be okay here by yourself, right?”

“That’s a silly question. I’m always okay here by myself,” Yerim says, curling up and enjoying the warmth of her bed. She fumbles around in her sheets for her phone so she can check the time, but she can tell by the lack of light streaming through the curtains that it’s earlier than any person should reasonably awake. Her mother is always so busy, using every hour in the day to its fullest potential. Yerim really admires that about her.

She has tried not to make too much of a fuss about moving. Her mother has been working hard to put back enough money to get them out of this apartment and into a much nicer one. Even though Yerim doesn’t really know what the problem with their current one is, she tries to be cheerful about the move. For her mom’s sake.

In private, she has mulled it over by herself, with Jimin, and especially with Jeongguk. At night, she has dealt with Seulgi’s mournful, desperate sobbing for hours and hours on end. She begs and begs for Yerim to stay here, to help her, to free her from this misery. Yerim is pretty good at ignoring it. Seokjin doesn’t show up as much. Yerim can hear him, though. She can hear him promising to Seulgi that everything is going to be alright.

Yerim tries to resume sleeping once her mother is out the door, but she’s feeling restless now. She wakes up and drags herself to the kitchen, setting some water to boil for a cup of tea.  

“Good morning, Jeongguk,” she says.

“Good morning, Yerim,” Jeongguk says, appearing by her side, tea tin in hand.

“How did you know it was a genmaicha morning?” Yerim asks, taking the tea from him. Her fingers brush his and she barely feels anything at all.

“Because you’re weird and like to drink gross things,” Jeongguk teases, gliding over to the kitchen table and sitting down. He taps his thumbs together and gives Yerim a crooked smile. Lately he has been less anxious about Yerim seeing his left hand—his cursed hand, as he calls it occasionally. Because he’s not sure why exactly it manifested the way it did, but it’s probably because he did something bad once upon a time and needs to be punished.

Yerim would have never guessed that ghosts and spirits and the like would be superstitious in their own right, having their own set of irrational fears and worries and the feeling that they must answer to someone or something even more terrifying and mysterious than themselves, but Jeongguk most certainly is.

She can tell that he wants to talk about what’s going on. He wants to talk about Yerim leaving and what that means for them exactly. He isn’t as good at hiding things as he thinks he is. Yerim isn’t ready to feel bad just yet.

She likes the view right now. The sunrise creeping in through the window, the rising steam from her kettle, and Jeongguk.

“Genmaicha isn’t gross. It’s complex, strong, and dignified, much like myself,” she says.  

“Dignified,” Jeongguk snorts.

“Yes, dignified. I am having a dignified cup of tea for breakfast and enjoying a peaceful morning alone.”

“You want me to go?” Jeongguk asks, pouting. “Who will make sure you don’t oversteep your tea?”

Yerim fills her infuser with tea leaves and snaps it closed. She stares at the red-hot eye of the stove, waiting patiently for the water to get hot enough to commence with brewing her tea. She wonders if she should offer some to Jeongguk.

“I think my tea will be fine without you, but I don’t mind you staying,” she says, glancing at him over her shoulder. She grabs a mug from one of the cabinets and sets it down on the counter. “Jeongguk, can you… uh, I was wondering if you can—”

“No,” Jeongguk snaps. “I can’t.”

“Well, I was just trying to be polite. No need to get all snippy with me,” Yerim says, picking up the kettle and carefully pouring the hot water into her mug. She drops her infuser in, toying with the little anchor chain that hangs over the side. “I would like to be able to have tea in the morning with you. And sit at the window sill while the sun comes up. That would be nice.”

“It would be, wouldn’t? I’m sure the view from your new apartment is going to be beautiful,” Jeongguk says.

Yerim finally makes herself turn around to face him. He’s smiles like nothing is wrong. “I guess so. Two minutes for genmaicha,” she says. “The batteries in my timer are dead, so you’d better not distract me, Jeongguk!”

“Trying to avoid the reality of you leaving soon isn’t doing either one of us any favors, Yerim,” Jeongguk says.

Yerim hates it when he uses this tone with her. Because he is just so smart, and knows absolutely everything, and most definitely gets to tell Yerim how she should and should not be reacting to the current situation.

“You know,” she says, sauntering over to where Jeongguk sits and brushing over the ends of his hair with her fingers, “I am fully aware that I am leaving! And you are fully aware that I am leaving. And every lost soul in this building is apparently fully aware that I am leaving, so… why do we have to sit and talk about it? Let’s just have a normal morning. Can we do that?”

She places her hand against his cheek, because she already has a headache this morning and what’s another icepick straight through her skull?

“We can do that,” Jeongguk says, reaching up and pulling the hair tie off of the end of Yerim’s braid. He pulls at the locks of hair until they are untwisted. “You look pretty this morning, Yerim.”

Yerim hums with contentment, combing her fingers through her tangled hair. “I’m a very pretty girl, Jeongguk. I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to notice,” she says, grinning from ear to ear. Jeongguk is certainly in rare form today.

Her stomach sinks out of nowhere. She looks at Jeongguk and notices that his eyes are focused not on her, but at something just behind her. He doesn’t look too concerned, so she doesn’t feel too incredibly worried. Just a little bit annoyed. 

“Who is it this time?” she asks, sighing. She turns around.

“It’s me, little star.”

Yerim has never been able to identify what it is about Seokjin’s voice that bothers her so much. She described it once to Jimin as a nails on a chalkboard sort of feeling, but that hardly even gets her point across. It’s the empty, hollow echoes, the way he sounds like he’s speaking to her from fifty different places at once, the low rumble that makes Yerim’s heart feel like it’s beating off its rhythm.

“Doing your rounds in broad daylight. That’s pretty unusual for you,” Jeongguk comments, quickly moving from the kitchen table to the space between Seokjin and Yerim.

“It would appear that little Yerim is going to be leaving soon,” Seokjin says. He tilts his head slightly. “Are you really going to leave us here to rot, Yerim?”

“Seokjin, exactly how far removed from reality are you?” Jeongguk asks. “Haven’t you seen what doing nothing but ruminating in your own despair has caused you? You could have been content. Happy, even. You chose this. You chose to rot rather than to simply be, like the rest of us.”

“It’s hard for me to say,” Seokjin says. “Once you’ve got revenge on the mind, you can only see things in varying shades of red. Everything is worthless… miserable… disgusting. Disgusting. It’s all disgusting. Our world is disgusting. And Yerim’s world is disgusting, but what a beautiful mess it is. Let us back in, Yerim.”

“Leave,” Yerim says. “Leave me alone. You don’t scare me. I don’t even care about you at all. Just go away.”

Jeongguk looks from Seokjin to Yerim and then back to Seokjin. He is silent as Seokjin stares the two of them down, morning sunbeams shining straight through his translucent form. When Seokjin is gone, his shoulders drop.

“He’ll be back later,” he says. “The stakes are too high now. If you leave, they’ll be sitting around for who knows how many decades before another person like you comes along.”

“I don’t understand,” Yerim says quietly, staring at the floor and gripping the bottom of her shirt in her hands. “I don’t understand any of this! If they’re bad, why can’t you just make them go away? Punish them?” She’s crying now, not because she is sad or scared, just because she is so frustrated she can’t stand it at all.

“It’s not my job to punish them, Yerim. Everything is a balancing act. I can’t tip the scales. All I can do is exist. That’s all we are supposed to do.”   

“My tea,” Yerim says, wiping her eyes and rushing over to the counter. Oversteeped. “It’s… not good, it’s going to be so bitter! All the tannic flavors and stuff… You know… it completely ruins the taste. I totally messed up!” Her voice cracks despite her best efforts to resume composure, not show even a shred of weakness.

“It’s okay to cry, Yerim. You don’t have to pretend like you don’t want to,” Jeongguk says softly.

“It’s not okay,” Yerim argues. She uses her sleeve to wipe her damp cheeks. “It’s not okay! Nothing is okay.” She takes a sip of her tea. It’s almost too bitter for her to handle.

She downs the entire cup.

 

 

Yerim wakes up, flat on her back, hands folded over her stomach. Only a few inches above her, staring straight into her eyes are two empty, gaping eye sockets, infinite in the darkness like tiny black holes. She is not surprised. Nothing surprises her anymore.

“You’re awfully close tonight, Seulgi,” she whispers.

“We can’t let you leave,” Seulgi says. The hinges of her jaw grind together with every word. It makes Yerim feel sick at her stomach.

“Are you going to kill me?” Yerim asks. “I don’t think you can do anything right now. Jeongguk—”

“Jeongguk is a silly fool. He really should leave well enough alone, but he can’t. He’ll come running to you, like he always does. You don’t have to tell me that.”

Yerim blinks. Seulgi tilts her head and moves away enough so that she can regain at least some of her flesh.

“I wish you would just die,” Yerim says. There had always been a part of her that felt sorry for Seulgi and Seokjin, and maybe an even smaller one that believed that there was a chance for their redemption. Now she sees that she was just being foolish, projecting her own simplistic human thoughts onto a situation that exists out of her bounds. “I wish you and Seokjin would die. I wish you and Seokjin would do whatever it is demons have to do to not be here any longer. I don’t even know. I wish I never had to see you two ever again. And I wish that you would go to a terrible place.”

“What a selfish little girl you are,” Seulgi whispers, kneading her hands together. Her bones clink and clang together noisily. “I’ve watched you order Jeongguk around like he’s a lapdog. I’ve watched you will flowers to life. Anything you could ever want has fallen right into your lap. But what will become of me, I wonder? Where does the darkest, nastiest whim in sweet Yerim’s mind want to send me off to? I can’t wait to see. It’s so refreshing to see that you have such wickedness in you.”

Yerim grabs Seulgi’s shoulders and pushes her away. “I really don’t care,” she says. She throws her blankets back and sits up, her legs hanging off of the side of her bed, and surveys the room. Jeongguk is nowhere to be seen. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of you two.”

Seokjin is skulking silently by her desk, hidden in the shadows. Normally his presence his overbearing and heavy, effortlessly turning the air thick and hazy and making Yerim feel like she’s surrounded by smoke, but tonight it feels like nothing at all. Seulgi joins him, linking her arm with his, and rests her head against his shoulder.

“Did you hear, Seokjin?” she asks. “We’re going to die. As if anything this brat could wish upon us would be worse than every waking moment we spend here.”

“How disappointing,” Seokjin says. “Jeongguk, would you like to join us?”

Jeongguk appears next to Yerim’s bed, placing himself in the middle of them all as he always does. “Well, since you asked nicely,” he says. Rather than floating as he usually does, he is standing with his feet firmly planted on the ground.

 _I wish they would leave. I wish they would leave. I wish they would leave._ No matter how many times the thought crosses Yerim’s mind, nothing happens. The dead stillness of Seulgi and Seokjin is scarier than any time they’ve ever gotten too close to her before. She tugs at her braid just to make sure it is there. She tries to speak, but her words are stuck in her throat.

“Don’t be scared, Yerim. They can’t hurt you as long as I’m here,” Jeongguk says, not taking his eyes off of the pair. “Everything will be alright.”

“Oh, is that what you think?” Seulgi asks, laughing under her breath. “I wouldn’t count on it, little bird.”

Propelling herself off the edge of Yerim’s desk, Seulgi dives at Jeongguk, something feral about the way her features contort, the way she bears her claws and goes straight for Jeongguk’s throat. He grabs her wrists and attempts to hold her at bay, but he is easily overpowered.

Yerim scrambles clumsily out of bed. Her first instinct is to try to shove herself between the two of them, but something stops her in her tracks. Seokjin holds tightly on to the back of her shirt and lifts her off the ground as if she weighs absolutely nothing.

“Dammit, let me go!” she yells, squirming around violently until Seokjin finally drops her onto her bed. 

“Seulgi, you’re absolutely phenomenal!” Seokjin marvels. “His protection is already wearing off!”

“Y-Yerim,” Jeongguk coughs, pushing hopelessly against Seulgi. “Yoongi—I need—”

“Jimin! Jimin, wake _up_ ,” Yerim screams, beating against the wall until the drywall begins caving in. “Jimin, tell Yoongi—Yoongi, please, I don’t know if you can hear me, but please help us!” she sobs.

“I knew it…” Seulgi says through gritted teeth, tightening her grip. “I _knew_ it all along. You’re weak. You’re just a child. You were lucky that your little charm worked on the human girl, but you can do nothing to protect yourself from one of your own. I have no idea why I didn’t do this sooner.”  

Seokjin watches them idly, keeping quiet until Seulgi begins ripping at the flesh of Jeongguk’s throat. At that he lets out a wistful sigh, as if he has never seen anything more beautiful before in his life.

“Stop, please, I promise I’ll do whatever you want!” Yerim begs. Her hands ache from hitting the wall and she has received no sign that anyone has heard her cries for help. Jeongguk’s body hangs from Seulgi’s grip like a ragdoll.

“Oh, please be quiet. I hate the sounds of humans whining,” Seokjin says, holding his finger to his lips. “Let’s just end this quickly, Seulgi.”

“Fine,” Seulgi says. She loosens her grip on Jeongguk’s throat. He is doll-like in her hands. No movement, no sounds. “Little bird, was it worth it? You can’t answer me, can you? I’m sure the answer would be—” She pauses, moving one of her hands down to his chest.

She digs her fingers into him. Yerim covers her ears and pleads nonsensically with Seulgi to no avail. The sound of ripping flesh and cracking bones makes her gag. 

Seulgi jerks her arm back. In her hand is Jeongguk’s heart. She drops his body to the floor. “No, right? The answer would be no,” she says, squeezing his heart in her hand. 

“No,” Yerim whispers frantically as she stumbles onto the floor, crawling over to him and holding his face in her hands. “Jeongguk, please, no. I wish… that Jeongguk was okay. I wish that Jeongguk was alive. I wish that Jeongguk wouldn’t go away,” she cries. She touches him without the aching, burning pain shooting through her body. She presses her forehead against his. “Jeongguk, please, don’t leave me alone. Don’t make me be here alone.”

“How messy,” Seulgi whines.

“I know, I know,” Seokjin says, wrapping his arm around her waist. He crouches down next to Jeongguk’s body to get a better look. “But that’s the only way to get the job done. You know what I find hilarious? Look at how many wishes our little star has made tonight that simply didn’t come true. Maybe she really was just a normal, worthless human after all. She couldn’t even wish for her guard dog to be alright. How funny.”

Seulgi yawns and stretches her arms over her head. A drop of Jeongguk’s blood drips from her fingers and lands on her face, just beneath her eye. “What a waste of time,” she sighs. “Should we just kill her now and put her out of her misery? Poor thing will probably never recover.”

“We’ll do that,” Seokjin says sweetly, reaching out and petting Yerim’s hair. She doesn’t even notice, too engrossed in her grief.

“Actually, I don’t think so.”

The unfamiliar voice snaps Yerim back to reality. She looks around frantically for the source. “Yoongi?” she asks. Her voice is rough and her throat is sore. “You’re Yoongi. I know you are. Yoongi, please help me. I need your help. Please—”

A small, frail looking boyappears at Yerim’s side. Although he is not physically intimidating in the slightest, the weight of his presence is overwhelming. Seulgi and Seokjin nervously back away, as if the very energy of his being is hurting them. They hold hands and disappear together without another word.

“Yerim,” Yoongi says gently. “I’m so… terribly sorry that I didn’t come earlier. It’s difficult to hear those we do not have strong bonds with. But I felt Jeongguk leaving. That’s what brought me here. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

He places his hand over Jeongguk’s eyes and closes them.

“Why…? Why is it that I can wish for anything I want and get it except for the one thing I need? I don’t understand,” Yerim murmurs, lacing her fingers together with Jeongguk’s. “What does this mean? Where do the dead go when they…?” She can’t even bring herself to go on. She looks at Yoongi expectantly, tears obscuring her vision.

“I can’t tell you for certain,” Yoongi says, “but I would guess that perhaps your wishes were only special when they were in Jeongguk’s power.”

“The lilacs,” Yerim says, hiccupping. “The lilacs bloomed for so long. How did that happen?” Tears spill from her eyes as she thinks about the bouquets Jeongguk would bring to her after school, the ones he would braid into her hair, how she knew he was thoughtful even when he wanted to act rough because from the moment she told him that lilacs are her favorite, he remembered, and he tried his hardest to fill her days with them as much as he could.

Yoongi is silent for a moment. He brushes his fingers along the gaping hole in Jeongguk’s chest. Yerim watches as everything is healed and sealed up under his gentle touch. “I don’t know where he will go from here, but I don’t want him to have to wear a terrible reminder of what happened, even if he can’t remember it.” He turns to look at Yerim. “I wish I could give you all of the answers you want, but I can’t. And I am very sorry.”

“I didn’t ask to be born like this. And Jeongguk didn’t ask to somehow get stuck with the responsibility of taking care of me,” Yerim says, her bottom lip quivering. She lets out a pained sob as she as sees Jeongguk’s body fading away. Her hand moves straight through his when she attempts to tighten her grip on him.

His blood on her clothes slowly disappears. It’s as if he never existed in the first place.

“Can I tell you something that might make you feel better?” Yoongi asks, not even waiting for an answer before he continues. “When I see Jimin, I feel that I was born to find him. It’s taken me a lifetime to understand, but I genuinely believe that predestination is true for everyone. Jeongguk did not accidentally stumble across you only to become burdened by you. Jeongguk remained here because he was meant to find you.”

“Do you… think he’ll be able to find me again?” Yerim asks quietly, not quite sure if she is ready to hear the answer that Yoongi may give her.

“I don’t know. But if everything happens for a reason, then perhaps.”

“What if there was a reason he had to leave me now? What if I never see him again?”

“As you can imagine, fatalism is either a blessing or it is a curse. Either you can accept the fact that you have no free will and enjoy your life as it unfolds or you can fight against that notion in any way you can. Fight against it, Yerim. Give it your best shot.”

Yerim’s head is too cloudy to fully understand what he is saying at the moment. “I’m going to try and sleep,” she says weakly, hardly able to stand on her own two feet. She drags herself across the room and collapses in her bed. “You’ll watch over me, right? At least until we move out on Saturday?” she asks, glancing over the edge of her comforter at Yoongi.

Yoongi nods. “Of course,” he says. “I think Jimin will be alright without me for a couple of days.”

“Thank you, Yoongi,” Yerim says, rolling over and facing her back towards her him. “I can see why Jimin likes you so much. You feel safe.”

She reaches up into her window sill and feels around for the jar of lilacs she keeps. She pulls one out and holds it to her nose. It doesn’t really smell like much of anything at all. She crushes it in her hand.

And even though it is hopeless, Yerim wishes, wishes, wishes with all her heart that she could see Jeongguk again.

 

 

It’s spring again and Yerim has been hounding the landlord for months about making sure that the gardener grows lilacs in the gardens around the apartment complex. She wakes up, peeks out her window, and lets out a delighted squeal.

“Mom!” she yells, rolling out of bed and running straight into her mother’s bedroom. “Mom, the gardens are beautiful!”

Her mother gives her an exhausted groan in response. “I’m sure they are. But please, let me sleep in, Yerim. This is my only day off this week,” she says.

“Okay, okay,” Yerim says, apologizing quietly and leaving her mother to her rest. She runs back into her bedroom and excitedly pulls her uniform out of her closet. Then she grabs her phone off of her bedside table and sends Jimin a quick message. _Lilacs in the garden this year?_

He replies promptly, _No ;;; They grew but then wilted soon after. So I can’t bring you one this morning, sorry ;;;;;;;;;;;;_

For some reason, Yerim isn’t particularly shocked.

She pulls on her uniform walks over to her vanity, brushing her hair out until it falls in smooth waves down to the middle of her back. Something feels off to her today. She gathers her hair over one shoulder and separates it into three different parts. Carefully, she crosses right over middle, left over middle, and again, and again, and again. Just the way Jeongguk tried to teach her so many times.

It’s not perfect, but it will do. She ties the end off with a hair tie.

Her walk to school from her new home is only five minutes compared to Jimin’s fifteen, so she waits for at the gate, impatiently sending him messages every few minutes because she wants to at least have a little bit of time to chat with him before the bell rings.

She spots him in the distance, running as fast as he can and waving his arms at her. Once he reaches the gate, he is completely out of breath. “I ran,” he pants, “all the way down the coffee shop just so I could get you a lilac. They have some out front.”

“Jimin, you’re so silly,” Yerim says, taking the flower and putting it in her hair. She feels a pang of sadness in her stomach that she tries to ignore.

“It’s important,” Jimin says, wiping the sweat off of his forehead. “Yoongi doesn’t know why lilacs won’t grow in our gardens anymore, but he thinks it has something to do with…” He trails off and looks at Yerim apologetically.

“I know,” Yerim says simply. She links her arm with Jimin and walks with him to class. They have to go their separate ways once they reach their classroom, Jimin having the coveted seat at the back of the class by the window and Yerim sitting in the very front of class where the teacher can catch her if she starts daydreaming.

She doodles in her notebook until their teacher arrives, the familiar tap, tap, tap of her high heels signifying the beginning of a long, excruciating school day. But this morning there is something different. There are light footsteps following after her. Yerim looks up. They have a new student.

His left arm is in a sling. He stands with his back to the class as he writes his name on the blackboard.

“Everyone, we have a new student joining our class today. Jeongguk, would you please introduce yourself to everyone?”

Yerim’s stomach twists into knots. What a terrible coincidence, she thinks, turning her attention back to her notebook as the boy turns around to properly greet the class. She glances back at Jimin who is staring at him in awe.  

“My name is Jeon Jeongguk. I was homeschooled for many years because of a heart condition, but my doctor thinks I’m healthy enough now to attend school like everyone else. Please treat me well. I look forward to spending the year with everyone.”

Yerim has no idea what’s up with Jimin. She turns her attention back to the front of the room and finally looks at the new addition to their class.

Everything moves in slow motion. She takes in his big eyes, his hooked nose, his front teeth that make him look like a rabbit. The teacher places him in the empty desk behind Yerim before excusing herself to go retrieve the necessary textbooks for him from the library.

He gives Yerim a nervous smile and a slight bow as he passes by.

She turns around in her seat and greets him shyly, anxiously even. Maybe it’s just an uncanny resemblance. Or her mind is playing tricks on her. “Jeon Jeongguk,” she says, “it’s nice to meet you.”

“Do I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar. What’s your name again? I didn’t quite catch it,” Jeongguk says. He tries to unzip the backpack that hangs off the side of his desk, but the zipper gets caught and he can’t pull it loose with just one arm.

“I…don’t think so,” Yerim replies. She reaches over to help him with his backpack, her fingers brushing over his as she grabs onto the zipper and pulls. “My name is—”

Jeongguk jerks his hand away from her. He stares at her, awestruck, cheeks flushed.

“Yerim?” he whispers.

 “Yes,” she says, and suddenly she is crying despite her best efforts not to. She pulls the lilac out of her hair and places it in his palm, folding his hand over it. There is no dull throbbing in her head. No pain shooting through her limbs.

She smiles. Jeongguk smiles back.

“That’s right, Jeongguk. Yerim.”

 

 _For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,_  
_Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,_  
_There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim._


End file.
